Page 28 of No Business Like Snow Business

The old woman pursed her lips. “Well, whoever I called didn’t answer.”

“No, I know,” Harvey said. “But it wasn’t me. And you don’t need to type the number in every time. You can just find my name in your contacts.”

“Oh, Harvey, you know I’m no good with all of that.” She turned her attention to me, peering at me over the top of her glasses. “And who is this handsome young man?”

“This is Sterling,” Harvey said. “I’m helping him with a research project. Sterling, this is Martha. Martha works here at the museum with me.”

Martha held out a gnarled hand. “It’s nice to meet you, Sterling.”

I shook her hand. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”

Martha passed Harvey the sign. “Well, I’d best be going to get that flour, otherwise I won’t have any sugar cookies made for my nephews this weekend. I’ll be sure to make some for you too, Harvey.”

He beamed. “You make the best sugar cookies in Christmas Falls. But don’t tell my grandma I said that!”

Martha chuckled. “What about you, Sterling? Do you like sugar cookies too?”

“Um, yes, I do.”

“Well, I’ll have to make some for you as well,” Martha said, and headed for the exit.

This town and the people in it could not be for real, but the more time I spent here, the more I was starting to believe they were.

“She’s not just going to make me sugar cookies, is she?”

Harvey folded the sign and put it in his pockets. “No, she is.”

“But why? She doesn’t even know me?”

Harvey shrugged, and grinned. “Because it’s Christmas, Sterling. And it’s not just Christmas, it’s Christmas in Christmas Falls. That’s double the Christmas. I’ve done the math.”

“A counting horse could have done the math on that one.”

He laughed, his eyes shining, and then he nudged me with his shoulder. “I guess I should actually go to work, in case anyone wants to see the museum.”

“I guess you should,” I agreed. “What time do you finish?”

“Around five-thirty,” he said. “I’m usually out by six at the latest.”

“Let me take you to dinner?”

His cheeks pinked up as he gave me a pleased smile. “Okay.”

“Then I’ll pick you up at six,” I said.

“Okay,” said Harvey, biting his lower lip in a way that was more distracting than it had any right to be. “I’ll see you then.”

And it took every ounce of self-control I had not to kiss him right then and there.

eight

HARVEY

The afternoon could not have dragged more. Even Martha’s chatter, once she got back from the store, couldn’t distract me from obsessively checking the time every few minutes on my phone. We had a few visitors in the afternoon—the Arts and Crafts Fair always brought us some traffic—and I spent a little while showing them through and answering any questions they had. The most popular question, unfortunately, was one nobody had an answer for. It was “Butwhy?” and it was directed at the 1993 mechanical Santa.

An older couple stopped and read every information card on every display, making humming sounds to draw the other one’s attention when they found something particularly interesting. They also bought a postcard and a keychain before they left, which was about as exciting as things got at the museum. But it gave me an excuse to check the inventory and make sure I wasn’t going to run out any time soon.

Spoiler alert: I was not, because hardly anyone ever bought anything.

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